


Colorful

by zavegonzo



Category: Pikmin (Video Game)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Discovering One's Obsession With Linguistics, Does Letting Out an F-bomb Count as Explicit Language?, Excessive Descriptions of Nature, Explicit Language, Exploration, Exposition, Gen, Hugs, Language, Languages and Linguistics, Mild Language, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rewrite of Previous Fic, Transformation, Tree Climbing, Unrealistic Depictions of Boyfriend/Girlfriend Interactions, Violence, language learning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 15:29:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15866451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zavegonzo/pseuds/zavegonzo
Summary: One day, two boys, Dave and Johnny, manage to accidentally transform themselves into Pikmin. Now, stuck in the Pikmin world with only their wits (and Dave's obsessively detailed knowledge of everything in the Pikmin games) to guide them, can they ever make it back home? And what happens when even more people get mixed up in all this?(ABANDONED)





	1. Being Beans

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will never be updated again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! This fic is a rewrite of a previous fic of mine, called 'Pikmin Colors.' It sucked, so I decided to stop writing it and start writing this and actually put half an ounce of thought into it. I hope you enjoy reading this. Please leave a comment; I always appreciate feedback!

It was an early spring afternoon. Birds were singing, bees were pollinating, and on this day there were two young kids eating lunch in their school cafeteria.  
“Hey, Johnny!” said one to the other, pointing finger guns. This kid was slightly younger than the other, being eleven years old to the other’s twelve. He had a short stature and round face with curly brown hair that came down to the middle of his neck.  
The other kid, Johnny, turned. “Yeah, Dave?” Johnny had a flatter, slightly older looking face with neat blonde hair that was cut short.  
“I dare you to stay in that cave next to your home for a night!”  
“Huh? Uh…” Johnny paused, surprised by how sudden the dare was. He lived in a house that was not very far from a cave, and oftentimes he considered going into it, but never really bothered to.  
He considered it. It was the weekend tomorrow, so he wouldn’t have to worry about oversleeping and missing school. He wasn’t even afraid of the dark, so it would pretty much just be a boring night in a cave.  
“Sure, but that sounds way too easy. You just want me to stay in that cave overnight? I’m not a little kid, Dave. It’s not like I’m afraid of the dark or anything; it’s just a cave! Is there anything in it for me?”  
Dave thought for a moment. “I bet you ten dollars for it! If you can, I’ll give you ten dollars. If you can’t, you’ll give me ten dollars!”  
Johnny smirked. “I’m in, then.”  
“Awright!” Dave exclaimed. “Make sure you’re there by six tonight!”  
“O~kay!” Johnny replied.  
Johnny stayed true to his word and made sure to go to that cave right at six o’clock. Dave was sitting right outside of the cave. He looked half-asleep and was impatiently glancing every other second at a watch he was wearing.  
Johnny walked up to Dave. “Hey.”  
“Nkh-huh?!” Dave uttered. “Oh, Johnny… I was almost starting to think you wouldn’t show up.”  
“Why would you think that?” Johnny asked. “I’m right on time, aren’t I?”  
“Um…” Dave looked at his watch. “Yeah. You are…”  
“Well then,” Johnny said as he stepped into the cave. “Guess I’ll see ya tomorrow.”  
“M-hm,” Dave said, yawning.  
Johnny pulled out a flashlight from his pocket and turned it on. He walked through the cave, thinking about how this would be the easiest money he would make in his entire life.  
He was also a bit curious about the cave. He actually used to be afraid of the dark when he was really a kid, but over time he faced his fears and managed to lose his nyctophobia. But still, this was actually the first time he’d really gone more than a foot into the cave, so his interest was very much piqued.  
Johnny had been walking through the cave for a few minutes when he stumbled upon something weird.  
There were seven brightly-colored flowers in a small, circular section of the cave. They were arranged in a circle, going clockwise in the order: red, yellow, blue, purple, white, gray, and pink. The gray and pink ones stood up in a cup-like shape, unlike the other ones which laid close to the ground.  
The flowers were large enough to sit on, which was quite interesting considering the fact that there wasn’t any light to support the growth of such massive flowers.  
“I feel like I should show Dave these…” Johnny said to himself before walking back to the entrance of the cave.  
Dave was still sitting next to the cave, leaning against the outer walls and clearly asleep.  
“Hey Dave!” Johnny yelled.  
Dave startled awake. “Huh?! What happened?” he stammered.  
He looked at Johnny. “…Johnny? What’re you doing?” he asked before smiling slyly. “Don’t tell me… you’re too much of a wuss to do it?”  
Johnny scowled. “No,” he said. “I found something weird in here, and I wanna show you it.”  
Dave ruffled his brow. “…Really? That’s it?”  
“C’mon,” Johnny said, beckoning Dave to come with.  
“Well, I don’t really have anything better to do…” Dave mumbled as he stood up.  
“…OK, I’ll go.”  
Johnny smiled and led Dave over to the flowers.  
“…Whoa,” Dave uttered as he saw them. “These _are_ weird.”  
Dave walked over to the red flower, which was his favorite color. He hesitantly sat on it, seeming to not expect it to hold his weight. But it did, and very well, too.  
“Huh,” they both said.  
Johnny sat on the yellow flower, his favorite color, and gently set his flashlight on the soil.  
Dave yawned. “Man, I am really tired…” he mumbled.  
He lied down on the red flower.  
Johnny realized his eyelids felt a little heavy too, and also lied down.  
It was weird sleeping on a flower in the middle of a cave, but it was kind of soft, so he didn’t really mind.  
He fell asleep.  
________________________________________  
…  
Dark.  
It was dark.  
A dark sea of nothing.  
Johnny felt like he was both asleep and awake at the same time.  
It was that weird, abstract feeling you get when you force yourself to sleep when you’re not really that tired and then you wake up thirty minutes later but you can’t really muster up the energy to get up and you’re drifting in and out of consciousness in a phosphene-filled haze.  
He didn’t really know what was going on, but he vaguely felt like he was upright and surrounded by something that also kind of merged with him.  
He couldn’t move, but it still felt like he was moving slowly, somehow.  
…Recollection.  
Johnny remembered what had happened the previous night.  
_‘Dave dared me to stay in that cave, and I did, and he came along, and then I went to sleep on a weird flower, and…’_  
He paused in confusion.  
_‘Is that why I’m… here? Just kinda in a dark void? Because I slept on a flower?’_  
_‘What’s going on here?!’_ Johnny thought as he started to try and move. Immediately, he felt resistance from every angle he tried to go.  
_‘Nngh… Why is it so hard to move?! It’s like I’m covered in dirt or something!’_  
Johnny struggled more.  
After what felt like an eternity of struggling, he felt his head finally move.  
_‘!’_ he thought. _‘Yes!’_  
He struggled a bit more and managed to dislodge the rest of his body from the stuff around him and move more freely, but he was still stuck in it.  
He tried lifting his arms up, and it hurt because of how heavy the stuff was, but he stuck through it and eventually, he felt his hands cleave the surface of whatever he was in and touch cool air.  
Johnny would have sighed if his head were exposed to air, but instead he just relaxed slightly with the knowledge that not only was there a surface, he was pretty much right under it.  
For a moment, he wondered why he wasn’t choking to death considering he had no air, but disregarded it and started to try and lift himself out.  
He placed his hands flat on the surface and pushed. It was hard, but he managed to get his head out, when he realized something.  
_‘Holy crap, that “it’s like I’m covered in dirt” thing I thought earlier was accurate.’_  
Yes, Johnny was stuck in some dirt.  
He seemed to be in some sort of large cave, and could just barely see from some light coming from some weird mushrooms growing near him. They were pink and blue, and gave just enough light to see his surroundings  
The dirt was just the right shade of brown to look like any generic soil from any place, and the walls and ceiling were yards away from him and looked like unfocused gray blobs.  
Johnny quickly realized a second thing.  
_‘Holy crap, my skin’s yellow.’_  
His skin was yellow and his arms looked like a green bean if green beans were neon yellow beans. It was smooth and curved, ending in a smol paw-like hand with three pointy fingers.  
Johnny looked at it in awe and confusion. He moved it a bit, flexing and stretching.  
“…Unh,” he uttered in a high-pitched voice, surprising himself. It sounded somewhat like a human voice, but squeakier. It wasn’t like someone who had inhaled helium; it was naturally high and cute-sounding.  
Johnny noticed something moving from his peripheral vision.  
He looked up and saw a red stem coming from the ground a couple feet in front of him.  
“Huh?” Johnny pushed himself up out of the ground and started to walk over to the sprout.  
He fell on his face.  
“Guh—!”  
Johnny slowly stood back up and looked down at his body. It was yellow like his arms, and it was noticeably shorter than a human body. His legs were short and looked like his bean noodle arms, as they also were smooth limbs that ended in a three-branched appendage.  
Slowly, Johnny walked towards the stem, getting used to walking in this weird new body. He stood in front of the stem.  
It was bright crimson like an apple with a green leaf on its tip and it swayed gently on its own back and forth, back and forth.  
Johnny inquisitively poked the stem.  
It seemed to flinch a bit at his touch, before going back to calm swaying.  
Something about that swaying… It made Johnny really want to pull it out of the ground.  
Johnny grasped the stem with his hands and pulled hard. Immediately, he uprooted it, and fell backwards from how forcefully he pulled.  
“Yahoo!” a new high-pitched voice exclaimed as the sprout Johnny uprooted spun through the air above him.  
It landed behind him, and as he turned around, Johnny noticed yet another interesting thing.  
This was also a weird bean-looking creature.  
It was red instead of yellow, but other than that it looked just about identical to Johnny’s body.  
Looking at it, Johnny realized the stem was coming out of the top of its head. He put his own hand to his head, and he felt a stem also growing from his head.  
“Woah…” Johnny murmured.  
The creature he pulled out looked around, seeming to be confused. It slowly turned around.  
It and Johnny stared at each other for a few uncomfortable seconds.  
“…Hi?” said Johnny.  
The creature looked surprised for a moment before blinking and replying, “…Hello.”  
Johnny ruffled his brow, thinking of what he should even say.  
‘So this thing knows English… I guess I should ask it…’  
“Um… What are you?”  
The creature looked down at itself.  
“…I’m a Pikmin,” it stated.  
“A… ‘Pikmin’?” Johnny asked.  
“Yeah,” the Pikmin replied.  
“So…”  
Johnny hesitated.  
“Do you know what’s… going on?”  
The Pikmin put a hand to its chin. “No… No, I don’t.”  
“By the way,” it continued, “who are you?”  
“I’m Johnny,” said Johnny.  
The Pikmin gasped. “Really?!”  
Johnny blinked. “Uh… Yeah?”  
“I’m Dave!!”  
“Holy crap!” Johnny exclaimed.  
“What in the world?!” Dave yelled.  
“Seriously, what?!” Dave repeated himself, looking at his hands. “How did we become Pikmin?!”  
Dave worriedly looked around.  
“…Why are you just now freaking out?” Johnny asked,  
“I don’t know!” Dave shouted. “I guess I just thought this was like some weird cryptic dream but then you told me you’re Johnny and I just… I dunno.”  
“OK, so… Mind telling me what a Pikmin is?” Johnny asked.  
“Ah!” Dave uttered. “Right. Well…”  
Dave paused.  
“…They’re these little plant dudes from a game series also called Pikmin. They’re about an inch tall and are kinda like ants. In the games they follow a leader who can command them to do things, like attacking enemies or breaking down walls, stuff like that. You’re a Yellow Pikmin, which is lighter than the other types and shock-resistant, and I’m a Red Pikmin, which is stronger than the other types and fire-resistant.”  
Johnny blinked.  
“Wait, we’re… video game characters?!” he said incredulously.  
Johnny felt like he was in some sort of bad fanfiction on a free-to-use site, maybe a young author’s first attempt at writing.  
“Yep,” said Dave. “Your guess is as good as mine as to why.”  
Johnny blinked. “OK… Do you know what those weird glowing mushrooms are?” He pointed to one of them.  
Dave looked at the mushroom. “Oh, that’s a Glowcap. They naturally emit light and usually appear in dark caverns,” he explained.  
“That’s interesting,” said Johnny.  
Dave looked around. “…We should get going soon.”  
“Huh? Why?” Johnny asked.  
Dave looked at Johnny. “A dark cave isn’t exactly the best place for a Pikmin to be.”  
They looked at each other silently for a few seconds.  
“…OK, you’re probably wondering why,” Dave continued. “Lemme explain. Basically, this world’s got giant nocturnal monsters and for some reason every single one of them eats Pikmin as their main source of food, so it’s not exactly a good idea to hang out in a dark place like a sitting goose.”  
“You know a lot about Pikmin, huh?” said Johnny.  
Dave rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said a bit sheepishly.  
Johnny chuckled. “Don’t be embarrassed about it! In a situation like this, it’s good to have someone who knows what’s going on!”  
“I guess,” Dave replied, “but we still gotta get going.”  
“Ah, right.”  
Dave looked around the cavern. “Follow me,” he said.  
They started walking.  
It was pretty uneventful, as they just walked in silence.  
There were a few Glowcaps and regular mushrooms here and there, but that was just about it.  
They wandered around the rocky corridors, stumbling in what may as well have been a giant labyrinth for how lost they were.  
Eventually, they came across something that wasn’t just plain boringness given physical form.  
There was a giant mushroom with a red surface and white polka dots. It was at least twice Johnny’s height.  
“What’s that?” Johnny asked.  
“Shhh!” Dave quickly hushed.  
Johnny blinked. “Uh… What’s that?” he whispered.  
“A Bulborb,” Dave whispered in response.  
“And that is…?”  
“It’s one of the enemies from the Pikmin games. It might look harmless from this angle, but it is dangerous and I don’t want to be on the wrong end of its giant maw! Stay quiet, and don’t touch it!”  
“OK…” Johnny said a bit incredulously. He trusted Dave, but this sounded really weird. How dangerous could it be? It just looked like a giant mushroom!  
“Let’s keep going,” Dave whispered, beginning to walk again.  
Johnny nodded and started to follow, when he tripped on a rock.  
“Agh!” he grunted loudly as he fell face-first.  
Johnny froze.  
Dave froze, too.  
The ‘Bulborb’ slowly started to move, and Johnny could see why Dave was so worried about it.  
It lifted itself up on a pair of skinny, peach-colored legs and started to turn. The mushroom-looking part was just a bulbous backside which smoothly transitioned into an angled snout with two big eyes attached on short stems, a little nose, and a giant mouth with two fangs pointing out.  
The Bulborb grumbled quietly, clearly disgruntled about the sudden disturbance.  
It faced Johnny and Dave, its eyes focused for a moment, then it scowled and opened its mouth.  
“RAWRARRURRRR!” it roared.  
“Oh, ships!” Dave yelled. “RUN!”  
Johnny quickly pushed himself up off the ground and ran away from the Bulborb, with Dave close by.  
‘Oh crap oh crap oh crap run run run run run!!!’  
The Bulborb chased them swiftly, and even after a solid minute of running had passed it wasn’t slowing down a bit.  
“Crap…! Isn’t this thing gonna stop?!” Dave panted.  
They ran even longer, and the Bulborb still didn’t stop chasing.  
Then Johnny tripped.  
_‘Oh fuck.’_  
The Bulborb closed in on Johnny and leaned downwards, its giant jaws opening wide.  
Its spiky teeth and dark abyss of a throat burned into Johnny’s vision.  
It was too close to run away.  
All Johnny could do was wait.  
Wait for his death to come…  
“YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!” Dave screeched and dashed towards Johnny, startling the Bulborb just long enough for him to grab Johnny and pull him away.  
Johnny stumbled back onto his feet and ran away from the Bulborb at top speed with Dave. The Bulborb stopped giving chase, seeming to not want to go to such effort to eat two Pikmin.  
“Phew!” Dave huffed. “Oh gosh, that was scary…”  
“Shit, yeah…” Johnny replied.  
“Jeez… Lucky I got you here with me, huh?” Johnny panted. “That Bulborb woulda definitely eaten me if you weren’t around.”  
“Yeah. I’m glad you’re OK…” Dave replied.  
“…But y’know, we should still keep going.”  
Johnny sighed. “Really? I’m feeling really tired already…”  
“Yes,” said Dave. “Yes we really should. C’mon, we can’t rest until we’ve gotten out of this cave.”


	2. Ode to Outside

Johnny and Dave had been walking through this cave for what was starting to feel like months at this point, though it was actually a couple hours at most.  
It was boring.  
It was mind-numbingly boring.  
And it didn’t help that Dave walked at a snail’s pace. Johnny had to constantly slow down to match Dave’s speed. If he had to guess, it was probably from him being lighter than Dave. Johnny was pretty sure that Dave mentioned Yellow Pikmin being lighter than Reds.  
Every part of the cave system was incredibly samey, and the two had probably gotten lost or turned around and realized it a hundred times, and they probably did so without realizing it a hundred more.  
They probably would have had an easier time finding their way if Dave weren’t also infodumping everything he knew about Pikmin, from the important main mechanics to slightly less immediately relevant info about enemies to stereotypically geeky gushing about the classification of species in the Pikmin world and hypotheses about their evolution and other hoopla. It all started going through one of Johnny’s ears and out the other right around the time Dave started talking about his personal theories of where the Pikmin franchise would go next.  
“…So to recap, since some of the Onions in the ending of Pikmin 1 were colored gray and pink and later on in Pikmin 3 we got Rock and Winged Pikmin, I think that in Pikmin 4 we will get no more than two new types of the colors green, orange, or cyan,”  
_DRRN...DRRN..._  
“and so, the one leftover color will—”  
“Wait,” Johnny interrupted. “Did you hear that?”  
Dave blinked. “…Hear what?”  
_DRRN...DRRN..._  
“That!” said Johnny. “Did you hear that?!”  
Dave was silent for a few seconds.  
_DRRN...DRRN..._  
“…No, I don’t,” said Dave.  
“Really?! You don’t?!”  
Dave cocked his head to the right confusedly. “No, I don’t hear anything…”  
Johnny stared at Dave.  
Dave stared back.  
Dave’s stem stiffened up and his eyes widened. “Ah!” he said. “I think I understand!”  
“Huh?” Johnny uttered.  
“Your ears,” Dave said as he gestured to the sides of Johnny’s head.  
“What about my ears?” Johnny asked.  
“Haven’t you noticed? They’re really big,” Dave said like that explained everything.  
Johnny felt his ears. They were indeed large. “…OK? Why does that matter?” he asked in complete confusion.  
“Because!” Dave exclaimed, “Maybe that means you have enhanced hearing, so you can hear things I can’t!”  
“Oh,” said Johnny. “That makes sense.”  
“What does it sound like?” Dave asked.  
Johnny listened closely.  
_DRRN...DRRN..._  
“It kinda sounds like… digging.”  
Dave blinked. “Digging?”  
“Is that bad?” Johnny asked worriedly.  
“It depends whether something dangerous is making the sound or not,” said Dave.  
Johnny rolled his eyes. “Ya don’t say.”  
“Hey!” Dave said indignantly, “I’m just saying that ‘a digging sound’ isn’t enough information for us to act on! For all we know, it could a Burrowing Snagret, or it could just be—”  
_DRRRNH—!_  
A bunch of pink, yolk-shaped bugs dug out of the ground, startling Johnny. Dave sighed.  
“…Sheargrubs.”  
“Sheargrubs?” Johnny asked.  
The Sheargrubs wriggled and crawled around on the ground. It was gross, but also kind of endearing.  
“Yeah. These are Sheargrubs. Female Sheargrubs, to be specific. They’re harmless to Pikmin and can be easily killed,” Dave exposited.  
Johnny stepped towards one of the Sheargrubs, which didn’t seem to notice him. He lightly tapped the top of its head.  
The Sheargrub flinched and started wriggling away, making high-pitched squeals. The rest of the Sheargrubs followed suit.  
Johnny chuckled softly. “They seem easily startled.”  
“They’re pretty much cannon fodder enemies,” Dave exposited further, “so they can’t do much but move around.”  
The Sheargrubs slowly calmed down, wriggling slowly.  
“Good thing these aren’t males,” Dave continued. “Those are actually dangerous.”  
“Really?” said Johnny. “Huh.”  
“Mm-hm. You’d think it were the other way around since they’re pretty much insects, but for some reason the females are weaker than the males,” said Dave.  
Johnny gazed at the Sheargrubs.  
He was silent for a few seconds.  
“…For some reason I really have an urge to kill them right now,” he uttered.  
Dave blinked. “…Me too,” he said with an uncomfortable tone.  
“Is that because we’ve become Pikmin?” Johnny asked.  
“I think so…” Dave replied.  
Johnny tried to tear his eyes away from the Sheargrubs, but he was utterly captivated by them. The longer he looked at them, the more appealing the idea of killing them became.  
Johnny slowly stepped towards the Sheargrubs.  
Dave looked at Johnny. “Uh… Johnny?”  
Johnny flinched. “Huh?”  
“Are you going to, uh…?” Dave glanced at the Sheargrubs, then at Johnny. “…kill them?”  
“Um…” Johnny muttered. “I don’t think so…?”  
Dave looked at the Sheargrubs for a few seconds. “Let’s get going,” he said slowly, turning away from the Sheargrubs. “We still need to get outta this cave…”  
Then Dave suddenly looked back at Johnny with an almost surprised look on his face.  
Johnny looked back at Dave. “…What? Do I have something on my face?”  
“No,” said Dave. “I have an idea.”  
“An idea?”  
“You heard those Sheargrubs when I couldn’t…” said Dave.  
Johnny nodded. “Yeah?”  
“…so, I think maybe you could hear your way out? Listen for wind or something?”  
“Oh! That’s a good idea! OK, I’ll try that.”  
Johnny closed his eyes and listened closely at his surroundings.  
DRrn… The Sheargrubs were digging back into the ground.  
Groo… A Bulborb faintly snored.  
_…w…sh…  
'?’_  
 _…woosh…  
'!’_  
_woosh…  
'There!’_ Johnny could just barely hear a breeze blowing from, presumably, the mouth of the cave.  
“I can! I hear wind!”  
“Nice!” Dave exclaimed. “Lead the way!”  
Johnny nodded happily and began walking.  
In just a couple minutes, they finally saw the exit! Bright sunlight shone through like a gateway to heaven, and fresh air blew through the large opening.  
“Finally!” Johnny exclaimed as he stepped out of the cave, arms high up in celebration.  
“Phew,” Dave sighed.  
The two looked at the world in front of them.  
It was absolutely beautiful, and not just because they had finally gotten out of the cave and they could breathe in the fresh air. The sky’s blue color looked more vibrant than ever before, and the ivory clouds painted the heavenly ocean with the light from the sun, which hung right in the middle of the sky. It was noon.  
Tall, green grass and giant trees framed the world in front of Dave and Johnny, the spring breeze gently caressed their stems, and the soft sounds of nature, buzzing bugs and singing birds, played like a symphony.  
“Wow,” Dave spoke. “It sure is beautiful, huh…”  
Johnny nodded. “Yeah… And this grass is huge!”  
Dave chuckled. “That, too. I guess that would be noticeable when you’re an inch tall.”  
“Yup,” said Johnny.  
“Wait, what?”  
“Hm? I thought I told you that Pikmin are an inch tall already,” Dave said calmly.  
Johnny blinked.  
“…WHAT?!”  
“I really coulda sworn I told you already…” Dave muttered.  
“An inch tall?!”  
“Yes,” said Dave, “an inch tall.”  
“Really?!” Johnny was completely incredulous. Was Dave serious?! They were an inch tall?!  
“Yes, Johnny! Really! You can accept that we’ve turned into video game characters, but not that we’re an inch tall?!”  
Johnny was speechless for a second.  
“Well, when you put it like that…” he muttered awkwardly.  
Dave hummed contentedly. “Anyway…”  
Dave walked forward a bit, turned around and reached out his right hand. “Let’s go.”  
Johnny took Dave’s hand and walked with him, and immediately Dave started expositing.  
“Have I told you about the Onions yet? I think I’ve told you about the Onions…”  
_DRRN… DRRN…_ Johnny heard the sound of yet more digging Sheargrubs in the distance  
“Well, it couldn’t hurt to tell you now. We’ll need to get to a Red Onion and Yellow Onion if we wanna survive the night.”  
_DRRN…_ Johnny looked to his right. It kind of looked like something was moving underground.  
“Onions are these big plant things that act like homes for the Pikmin. They also produce the seeds of the Pikmin, allowing them to reproduce. In order to do that, we’ll need to take a fallen enemy’s carcass to the Onion so it can suck it up and produce seeds…”  
Dave paused for a second, gears turning in his head.  
A few feet (actually inches) away and past the grass, Johnny saw a purple Sheargrub emerge from the soil.  
“Y’know, I think we could actually find an Onion if we killed something and started carrying its body. Pikmin seem to have an instinct that tells them where their Onion is whenever they carry something, so maybe if we follow that, we could find the Onions? Well, then again, I’m not sure if Pikmin can pathfind to a dormant Onion, so… Hm…”  
_DRRN… DRRN…_ The purple Sheargrub was joined by at least a dozen more.  
“I’m not sure if it would be good or bad to find an active Onion. Let’s just hope we find an Onion.”  
“Uh, Dave?” Johnny interjected.  
Dave looked at Johnny. “What?”  
Johnny pointed at the purple Sheargrubs. “What are those Sheargrub-looking things?”  
Dave’s squinted at where Johnny pointed for a second, and then eyes widened. He firmly clenched Johnny’s hand.  
Johnny looked nervous. “…Dave?”  
Dave silently started walking faster.  
“We need to go,” he said, quickening into a jog. “Now.”  
Johnny glanced frightfully between the Sheargrubs and Dave. “Huh? Why? A—Are those males?!”  
“Yes!” said Dave. He prepared to go into a sprint, and Johnny followed.  
But he didn’t sprint.  
He just stood there.  
“Dave…?” Johnny asked. “Are you OK?”  
Dave stared at the Sheargrubs with an odd look on his face. Johnny couldn’t really tell what Dave was feeling, as his Pikmin face hardly had any details to emote with, but it looked like some sort of… culpable feeling. Like he was thinking about doing something that made him feel guilty just considering it.  
“We could…” Dave muttered.  
“…No, that’s crazy…”  
“Dave?” Johnny repeated.  
Dave jolted. “Wh—! Uh…”  
“Why are you acting so weird?” Johnny inquired.  
Dave looked at Johnny for a few seconds. “…I think we might be able to kill a couple of those Sheargrubs and take them to an Onion.”  
“Huh?!” Johnny uttered. “But you just…” He looked at the Sheargrubs. There were about twelve of them. Six times Johnny and Dave’s numbers. “…said to go…”  
“I know, but… I think we could rush them and take a couple corpses and then hightail it outta there.”  
Johnny furrowed his brow concernedly. “I trust you, but are you sure about this?”  
After a few tense seconds, Dave slowly nodded.  
“OK, then…” said Johnny.  
Dave crouched down slightly, followed by Johnny. They slowly shuffled around the Sheargrub swarm a bit.  
They peeked their heads up and looked at the Sheargrubs. There were about twenty Sheargrubs grubbing around. Johnny felt intimidated.  
“On my mark,” Dave whispered. Johnny nodded.  
“Three…”  
“Two…”  
Johnny took a deep breath.  
“One…”  
If Dave and Johnny had hearts, they would have been pounding out of their chests.  
“…GO!” Dave yelled and charged into the swarm, swinging wildly. Quickly, he tackled a Sheargrub and crushed it under his weight, then he threw the body at another Sheargrub to knock it over. A Sheargrub bit at him, but he swiftly dodged and killed it, too.  
Johnny clawed a Sheargrub, sinking his fingers into the top of its head, killing it instantly.  
“NOW RUN!” Dave shouted, grabbing a Sheargrub corpse and sprinting away.  
“Agh! Wait up!” Johnny cried, also grabbing a Sheargrub corpse.  
They ran for a minute to make sure the Sheargrub swarm wouldn’t follow.  
“Phew!” Dave panted as they stopped. “We’re alright.”  
“Yeah…” uttered Johnny.  
Dave sighed relaxedly, closing his eyes.  
He opened his eyes suddenly with a tinge of fright, like he was a father who just realized he left his child in a locked car in hundred-degree weather.  
“Wait.”  
“Huh?” Johnny looked at Dave.  
Dave turned towards Johnny. “Johnny, do you feel any urge to… take that body anywhere?” he asked.  
Johnny looked at his dead Sheargrub for a few seconds. “Uh… not really.”  
“Hm…” Dave hmm’ed.  
“Is that a bad thing?” Johnny asked.  
“I think so,” said Dave. “That means we’re going to have to look for an Onion on our own.”  
He looked around. “We should start looking now…”  
“Maybe…” he muttered, searching the horizon for something of interest.  
“…Maybe let’s start with that tree?” He pointed at a large tree in the distance. “At the very least, we could use it as a landmark.”  
Johnny shrugged. “OK.”  
They started walking to the tree, Sheargrub corpses in tow.  
“OK, so about carrying…” Like a switch got flipped in his brain, Dave immediately started expositing again. Johnny was almost surprised.  
“…when a Pikmin carries something, it normally follows a predefined path towards its destination, such as an Onion, but if it doesn’t have a clear route to the Onion or it doesn’t have an Onion at all, it will just aimlessly walk around in circles.”  
While Dave was talking, Johnny glanced between him and the tree. Dave was starting to walk kind of fast, and he was completely distracted by talking.  
“I guess since we don’t know where any Onion is, and we have mostly human instincts, we just have no urge to carry stuff to any certain location. I think that maybe once we’ve found an Onion, we’ll start getting an instinct to carry things back to it.”  
Johnny slowly started to trail behind Dave, who was obliviously walking forwards to the tree.  
“And about Onions, I’m not quite sure how intelligent naturally-grown Pikmin would be.”  
At the rate Dave was going, he was going to hit the tree straight-on. Johnny wished that he had some popcorn.  
“I would assume not very much just based on the games, but when taking the short movies into account, they could range pretty much anywhere from being like ants to being like people, and—”  
Dave stopped as his foot touched a protruding tree root. “Oh, we’re here!”  
“Aw…” said Johnny.  
Dave looked at Johnny weirdly. “Why do you seem disappointed?”  
“I… it just seemed for a second like you were going to walk right into the tree.”  
Dave scoffed. “I’m not stupid. I can tell when there’s a tree in front of me.”  
“Anyway…” Dave glanced at the surroundings. “Let’s look around.”  
Johnny and Dave walked around the perimeter of the tree, carefully inspecting every single inch. They checked for about ten minutes or so, but they didn’t find anything.  
“Ugh!” Dave complained, finally getting impatient. “How long can it take to find a single Onion?!”  
He sat down against the rough bark, arms crossed.  
Johnny sat down next to Dave. “We’ll find it eventually.”  
“Yeah, eventually.” Dave rolled his eyes.  
Johnny gazed up at the branches of the tree. They looked like they went on forever, a cloud of shoots and leaves and a single yellow fruit.  
‘Huh? A yellow fruit?’  
Some sort of shiny, alluring yellow fruit was stuck up high on one of the branches. None of the other branches had any sort of yellow fruit growing from it, and it didn’t seem to be some sort of creature hanging out up there.  
Johnny gently elbowed Dave. “Hey,” he said as he pointed at the yellow fruit, “what’s that?”  
“What’s what?” Dave squinted at the branches for a couple seconds.  
“…Oh, you mean that, uh… fruit?” he said unsurely.  
“I think it’s a…”  
Dave blinked.  
“…an Onion!”  
“What?! An Onion?!” Johnny gasped. He could hardly believe what he just heard. ‘We’ve been looking for an Onion for so long, and now I just randomly find one when we stop to take a rest?!’  
“Yeah! It looks just like an Onion! Holy crap, nice find!” Dave said, beaming with joy.  
“Thanks!” Johnny replied. He looked back at the fruit, or rather, the Yellow Onion.  
“…So how do we get to it?” Johnny asked.  
Dave blinked.  
“I have no clue.”  
Johnny stared at Dave. “Oh.”  
“Well,” said Dave as he glanced at the giant tree’s giant truck, “I think that… maybe you could climb up?”  
“Oh, OK,” Johnny replied, already starting to grab at the bark.  
“Hey hey heyyyy! Wait a second!” Dave interjected, pulling Johnny away. “I said maybe!”  
“Yeah, so?” Johnny asked.  
Dave stared blankly for a few seconds. “‘So’…?! Whaddaya mean, ‘so’?!”  
“I feel like I can climb this!” Johnny said as he grabbed the tree bark again.  
With slight hesitation, Dave reached a hand towards Johnny. Johnny could just barely hear Dave muttering to himself, “How much upper body strength do Pikmin have…?”  
“…Uh, I think it’s still not the best idea to climb it. That Onion’s pretty high up. We should try something else first,” Dave said firmly.  
“Aw…” Johnny stepped away from the trunk and sat down. “OK.” His gaze wandered back up, looking at the Yellow Onion.  
While Johnny was looking at the Onion, Dave was looking around for something that could be used to get up to it.  
“Hm…” Dave looked around, but he didn’t see anything that gave him any ideas.  
He turned around.  
He looked at Johnny.  
Then he looked up at the Onion.  
Then a lightbulb flicked on in his head.  
“Ah! Hey, Johnny!”  
Johnny turned his head towards Dave. “Yeah?”  
“I’m gonna try something.” Dave stepped towards Johnny.  
“What is it?” Johnny asked.  
Dave grabbed Johnny’s stem with both hands and jerked his head forward.  
“Agh!” Johnny grunted. “Dave, what the hell’re you doing?!”  
Worldlessly, Dave firmly planted his feet against the ground and threw Johnny into the air.  
Johnny screamed as he spun a couple feet in the air like a ballerina starfish and hit the tree bark.  
“FUCK!” Johnny clawed at the bark for a second before crashing down onto the ground. “FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUUUU—!”  
Dave rushed over to Johnny. “Oh crap! Are you OK?!”  
“Ugh…” Johnny muttered.  
“Phew, you’re okay…” Dave sighed.  
Johnny sat up.  
He glared at Dave. “The hell was that about?!”  
Dave shrugged slightly, his face cringed up. “I—I thought I might have been able to… throw you up onto a branch?”  
“Throw me onto a branch?!” Johnny stood up fiercely. Confusion and pain burned in his eyes.  
“WHAT?!”  
“Woah!” Dave stepped back. “Hold up a sec! I can explain!”  
Johnny scowled. “You better explain it good, then.”  
“I will…”  
Dave took a deep breath.  
“You see, in the Pikmin games…”  
Dave gave a lengthy explanation about the combat system of the Pikmin games. It was like a real-time strategy game where instead of being sort of like a god hovering over the in-game world and giving commands to units on the field, the player controlled a single character whom the units, Pikmin, followed and who could throw the Pikmin onto enemies to deal damage. There were many different strategies that could be used, but the most effective in most cases was to throw Pikmin directly onto the enemy, preferably their weakpoint.  
After finishing, Dave muttered under his breath, “I could’ve sworn I told you all this back in the cave…”  
“Probably, but I was more focused on getting out of the cave than listening to your fantheories about where the Pikmin franchise might lead next,” Johnny replied.  
“Huh—Hey! I barely talked about that for two seconds!” Dave retorted.  
“Seemed more like two hours to me,” Johnny said with the closest Pikmin equivalent to a smile.  
Dave crossed his arms. “Seems like you’re impatient to me…”  
“Maybe,” said Johnny. “Or maybe you’re just a giant nerd.”  
“Why, you—! Johnny, what the fuck?! You would be dead without me here to be a ‘giant nerd’!” Dave said indignantly.  
“True. But I’d also not have to deal with your documentary-length monologues.”  
“Oh, well, I’m so sorry to give you more information than your little brain can handle~! You need me to start saying my sentences a little simpler~? Start speaking slow enough for your Cro-Magnon brain to process~?”  
Johnny slowly facepalmed. “I just need you to stop acting like you’re a narrator at the beginning of a badly written fantasy book, giving an infodump that could fill the Grand Canyon.”  
“I… Johnny!” Dave stammered. “I’m just trying to give you the info you need to survive here!”  
“Oh yeah, of course. How could I be so blind? Obviously I need to know your speculation about what Pikmin 4 will be about in order to survive!”  
Dave went speechless. He blinked.  
“I…”  
He sighed. “…OK. I’ll admit that maybe I got a little bit enthusiastic about having someone I could talk to on end about Pikmin,” he conceded, “but I still need to tell you about the Pikmin world for you to have a chance at survival!”  
“I get that, but you should save it for when we have time to spare. Didn’t you say the creatures here are nocturnal?” Johnny asked. He pointed to the sky.  
Dave looked up and saw the sun was getting pretty close to the horizon, sinking from the orange-cyan sky. “OH CRAP!”  
“Where did the time go?!” he stammered.  
“It was spent on you deciding a metric fuckton of infodumping and having an argument was more important than actually looking for safety,” Johnny replied.  
“Crap, crap crap…! OK, uh, I gotta go look for a Red Onion. You should try and find a way up to the Yellow Onion,” Dave said before dashing off.  
Johnny looked as Dave ran into the grass.  
Johnny glanced up at the Yellow Onion, then at the tree. “Hmm…” he hummed.  
“I really feel like I can climb this.”  
________________________________________  
Dave ran madly through the tall grass. He was panicking. He knew what would happen if he was still out and about when night fell.  
With the dim light of the sunset and obscuring tall grass, Dave realized he was completely lost. He could see the tops of a few trees peeking out above the grass, but he had no idea which one was the one he had come from.  
He stopped and kneeled to the ground. He knew it was hopeless.  
A scent entered his nose.  
He perked up. This scent… It was beautiful.  
The scent beckoned Dave to stand up and start searching after it.  
After a few minutes of sniffing around, he saw a sight as beautiful as the scent.  
This was the scent’s source…  
This shining orb with a white flower akin to chaenostoma cordatum on top, and a black matte bottom…  
This utter beauty…  
This was a deactivated Red Onion, lying down in a small clearing.  
“Yes!” Dave cried. “Yes! Yes!” He jumped and twirled. “I found a Red Onion!!!”  
He eagerly stepped up to the Onion and gently prodded it with his hand.  
_Pweu!_ The Onion sprang to life, flying into the air with a bright fiery jet coming from its bottom.  
_Futfutfutfutfutfutfutfutfut…_ It hovered angelically for a few seconds before a trio of yellow tentacle-y legs grew from its bottom and extended out to the ground, supporting the Onion like a tripod.  
Dave backflipped in victory. “Yahoo!” He ran over to one of the legs and climbed up it to approach the inside of the Onion.  
He hesitated for a moment, his entire body shaking in a mixture of excitement, relief, and fear, but he finally climbed into the Onion.  
________________________________________  
Johnny had realized something very important.  
Not only had he transformed into a Pikmin, he had transformed into a massive fan of climbing. He was having the time of his life climbing up the tree bark, and he was almost feeling sad that he was going to have to stop and get into the Onion.  
Eventually, though, he reached the branch the Yellow Onion was hanging from.  
Johnny climbed up onto the branch and slowly crawled across, doing his best sloth impression in order to keep himself from falling. He estimated he was somewhere around twenty feet up in the air at least, which wouldn’t be a height he would like to fall from even as a five-foot tall human, let alone an inch-tall Pikmin.  
After a minute of crawling, he finally arrived at the Yellow Onion. It was caught in between a pair of twigs sprouting from the branch that acted like a pair of tongs holding a polished lemon.  
Johnny gently reached out his hand and tapped the Yellow Onion.  
…Nothing happened.  
Until the Yellow Onion started to flail around all of a sudden, snapping the branch in half.  
The branch fell to the ground as the Onion slowly hovered down.  
Johnny screamed. “OH FUUUUU—”  
_Crack!_  
…  
…  
…  
“…Hah… Hah…” Johnny panted. The branch had crackled into splinters with the forceful impact. Johnny was fine, though, aside from being scared out of his mind.  
The Onion came hovering down. Three tentacles grew out of its underside and touched down to the ground, supporting it.  
“Crap…” Johnny walked up to one of the Onion’s tentacles and tiredly climbed up it.  
He entered the Onion.


	3. Dumb-ish Duo

It was a chilly spring evening, right around sunset. A young girl, about sixteen years old, was walking on the cold sidewalk of her quiet suburban town. She had a sleek face framed by dark, wavy hair going down to the middle of her back.  
Her name was Rosa, and she had a hobby of photography, and preferred to take photos at this time, with the dim red glow of the sun providing a certain je ne sais quoi that she just couldn’t get enough of.  
She was grinning slightly, with her camera ready to take lots of aesthetic photos.  
She looked from side to side, trying to find something good to take a photo of, when she noticed something, or rather, someone, across the street.  
It was a young boy, who looked around eleven years old, sitting at the mouth of a cave and impatiently glancing at a watch every other second.  
_‘Who’s that boy?’_ Rosa wondered. _‘He looks like he’s waiting for something…’_  
Rosa squinted hard at the boy while trying to not look like a weird girl staring at some boy minding his business.  
_‘Ain’t that one of the Davis kids?’_  
The Davises were a family that lived somewhat closeby to her. They, like pretty much every family in this gentrified place, were a well-to-do-looking middle class nuclear family. They had two parents, a mom and dad, and they had two children, a boy and a girl. To Rosa’s knowledge, they had only one pet: a seven-year-old Pomeranian.  
She wouldn’t go so far as to call them ‘neighbors.’ They lived in the same neighborhood as her and went to the same schools, but they lived on a different street and she didn’t really _know_ them.  
_‘I think I heard somewhere his name was… Dave? Dave Davis? …Wow, that is a horrible name.’_  
Rosa sighed. It was late, and she didn’t want to waste the evening looking at vaguely suspicious children. She was about to walk away when she noticed another boy walking up to Dave.  
She recognized this one. It was Johnny!  
Rosa didn’t actually know Johnny, but she knew his brother Joel. Joel was sixteen years old like her, and they were pretty good friends.  
Rosa only saw Johnny when she went to Joel’s home to hang out, but that was just for the few seconds before Johnny gathered up his stuff and went to hibernate in his room until Rosa left.  
Johnny walked up to Dave and seemed to say something to him, but Rosa couldn’t hear it from so far away. She held up her camera.  
Johnny stepped into the cave.  
Rosa quickly snapped a photo. This situation seemed pretty strange to her, and she felt like she should document it.  
Then, Rosa realized she probably looked very creepy with that attempt at a discreet shot and quickly walked home. She would take her aesthetic photos tomorrow.

* * *

The next day was a Saturday. Rosa woke up early at five (sleep is nothing compared to art in her eyes), grabbed her camera, and immediately started making her way to the front door.  
When she opened the door, though, there was someone there.  
Sometwo there, more accurately.  
It was a couple, a tall blond man and a brunette woman. They looked distressed.  
Rosa felt like she recognized them, then she remembered. These were Joel and Johnny’s parents! She saw them mostly when she hung out with Joel, which had gotten to be a rare occasion lately.  
“Can I help you?” Rosa asked.  
“Yes, um,” the woman began, “Have you seen our son Johnny anywhere lately? He looks like his father.” She gestured to the man beside her. “Blond hair, tall stature… He just disappeared this morning, and we haven’t been able to find him.”  
Rosa bit her lip. For some reason, she felt an urge to lie and say, “No. I haven’t seen him.”  
Which is what she did.  
The woman’s expression sank slightly. “You haven’t? …Well, have you seen his friend Dave? He has dark, curly hair, and he always wears red shirts?”  
Rosa shook her head. “No, no. I haven’t seen Dave either.”  
_‘What are you doing?!’_ Rosa mentally berated herself. _‘Yes you saw him! You saw both of them yesterday!’_  
Rosa said nothing more.  
“…OK,” the woman said. “Sorry to bother you.”  
The two parents walked away.  
Rosa slowly closed the door. She leaned against it and slowly slid down, sighing through gritted teeth, cringing horribly.  
She looked down at the camera in her hand.  
A lightbulb flicked on in her head.  
_‘I know! What if I… look for them myself?’_ she thought stupidly.  
_‘No, wait, what am I thinking?! I’m not Sherlock Holmes!’_  
She blinked. _‘…But now that I think about it, that would be pretty cool… I can see it now, a newspaper with a headline reading, “HERO GIRL SAVES TWO BOYS!” Ooh, I like the sound of that…’_  
Rosa slowly opened the door again. She looked around for a second before heading to the cave.  
It took a few minutes to walk to the cave, which Rosa spent mentally screaming at herself to just go do the responsible thing and tell an authority or go tell Johnny’s parents or at least _literally anything but go to that cave and have who-knows-what happen, what if there’s an ax murderer or some shit hOLY SHIT WHY AM I BEING SO STUPID AAAAAAAAAAA_  
Rosa shook her head and kept walking until she finally arrived.  
She stood in front of the cave, camera in hand.  
She stepped forward, took a deep breath, and started to walk inside.  
“Hey! Rosa!” a voice interjected.  
Rosa yelped and turned around to see a guy standing behind her.  
He was seventeen years old, wearing an unzipped black hoodie over a white tank top and blue jeans.  
“…Adam? What are you doing here?” Rosa asked.  
Adam was Rosa’s boyfriend. They had been dating for about six months.  
“What are you doin’ here?” Adam asked, folding his arms.  
“I’m just curious and wanna see what’s in this cave,” said Rosa.  
Adam chuckled. “That’s some obvious bullshit right there. What are you really doin’ here?”  
“I asked you first,” Rosa retorted. “Why are you here?”  
“I saw you walkin’ over here with a look on your face like the universe is gonna end or somethin’ like that, so I followed you here. Now tell me what you’re doing!”  
Rosa sighed. “Some kids disappeared lately.”  
“And that has to do with you being here because…?” Adam asked impatiently.  
Rosa folded her arms. “I’m getting to that,” she responded. “I came here because I saw those kids come into this cave yesterday night. I’m gonna see if they’re here.”  
“That’s so fuckin’ stupid,” Adam laughed.  
“Do you have any better ideas?” Rosa asked.  
Adam replied, “Yeah, how about, uh, I don’t know… going to the police?”  
“I can always do that later!” Rosa retorted.  
“Yup. ‘Later.’”  
“What, do you think I won’t do it?!”  
“No, I just think you should leave shit like this to people who know what they’re doing instead of trying to Sherlock Holmes it up.”  
“It couldn’t hurt just to look.”  
Adam sighed. “OK, fine, if you really wanna do it so much then let’s go waste some time in this cave.”  
They walked into the cave and wordlessly investigated around. Well, Rosa did. Adam just reluctantly followed.  
After a few minutes of absolutely nothing happening, they finally found something.  
It wasn’t the kids, but five large flowers, each of a different color.  
They were pink, gray, white, purple, and blue, respectively. The pink and gray flowers had petals raised up in a bowl shape, while the others were flat to the ground.  
“Woah,” Rosa muttered as she raised her camera and snapped a photo of the flowers. “These are some big flowers.”  
“Huh, yeah,” Adam replied.  
Rosa walked up to one of the flowers when she felt her foot hit something small. She looked down.  
There was a flashlight lying on the ground.  
Rosa picked it up and flicked the switch on its side. It didn’t turn on. The battery was dead.  
She set it back down and took a quick photo of it. This seemed strange.  
Rosa turned to the purple flower, leaning down to inspect it closely.  
Its five petals were thin and smooth, and each of them had a small pastel lime nodule on the tip.  
The flower’s central gynoecium was rough and colored a guacamole green. It felt like the skin of a lime, and it was shaped round with a small dip in the middle, like the joystick of a Nintendo 64 controller.  
“These flowers are interesting,” said Rosa as she ran her hand over the purple flower.  
Adam responded with muffled snickering.  
Rosa sighed. “Are you staring at my ass?” she asked pointlessly, knowing that that was definitely what he was doing.  
“Maaaybe,” Adam said.  
“Ugh…” Rosa shifted her position, sitting down on the ground.  
Adam smirked. “What? Do you expect to a guy to not look at a fine ass like yours? In pants like that?”  
Rosa sighed again and stood up. “Could you at least pretend to take this seriously?”  
Adam snickered. He walked towards the flowers.  
“Hey, how gay would it be if I just fuckin’ sniffed this big-ass pink flower?” Adam chuckled.  
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Rosa quipped.  
Adam faked shock. “Wow, damn,” he said, “you’re fuckin’ sick.”  
He turned and leaned down to the flower.  
He leaned in closer, and closer.  
And he fell onto the flower. “Agh!”  
Rosa laughed softly.  
Adam pushed himself off of the flower. Surprisingly, it wasn’t damaged at all.  
“Woah,” uttered Rosa.  
“Huh, this thing’s pretty sturdy,” said Adam.  
He stuck his foot into the flower and prodded it a little bit.  
Cockily, he shifted his weight to kick the flower a bit.  
But he instead he fell into the flower.  
“Shit!”  
Rosa laughed again.  
Adam irritatedly sat up from inside the flower, glaring at Rosa.  
The pink flower’s petals folded up around Adam, trapping him inside.  
“What the fuck?!” Rosa and Adam shouted simultaneously.  
Adam confusedly screamed from inside the flower.  
_‘I gotta get help!’_ Rosa thought.  
She turned around and started running out of the cave.  
Her foot slipped on the flashlight on the ground and she stumbled backwards, falling onto the white flower. She tried to get up, but the flower’s ivory petals furled up and trapped her inside.

* * *

Visual snow is a phenomenon in which a person sees ‘fuzz’ in their vision similar to TV static. All people experience visual snow to some extent, most often in a dark environment.  
Rosa had no idea where she was, but she knew it was dark, and she was experiencing visual snow.  
But this visual snow was red.  
_‘…What’s…going on…? Why am I seeing red snow…?’_  
_‘I can’t move… What is this?! Last thing I remember, I was…’_  
_‘…getting trapped by that flower…’_  
_‘What happened after that? Am I dead? Is this the afterlife?’’_  
_‘OK, Rosa, focus. Stay calm. It’ll be OK.’_  
_‘…Wait, what’s that shape in front of me?’_  
_‘It looks… humanoid? Kind of? It has a big head, and… is that a stem growing from it? I think it is…’_  
_‘C’mon, let’s try moving… Nnnh—! Damn! I’m stuck in… whatever this is!’_  
_‘On that note, where the hell am I and what the hell am I stuck in?!’_  
_‘I guess I’ll find that out later. For now, let’s try to move my head…!’_  
_‘Oh! Yes! I can feel it moving!’_  
_‘Whatever this stuff that’s holding me here is, it’s getting loose!’_  
_‘OK! My head’s unstuck! I mean, it’s still trapped in whatever this is, but it’s not attached!’_  
_‘Now, on to the rest of my body…’_  
_‘Mngh…! I can… do this…!’_  
_‘My shoulders are unstuck! Yes!’_  
_‘OK, I think I can push myself out if I just try… a bit… harder…!’_  
_‘I can feel it... I’m almost out…!’_  
Rosa’s head breached the surface of the stuff she was in.  
_‘Yeah! I…’_  
She looked around.  
_‘Am I in a cave?’_  
It was pretty dark, but she could still see that the stuff she was trapped in was actually soil.  
There were some weird glowing mushrooms around that illuminated the area faintly.  
Rosa looked around and reached her hands out of the soil, and she realized…  
‘Wait, why do my hands have three fingers?’  
Her hands and arms looked completely different from those of a normal human. They were smooth and shaped like sticks. The hands were more like paws, transitioning smoothly from the arm and extending out into three stubby twig fingers.  
She stared at the odd appendages for a while before noticing something else from her peripheral vision.  
She looked up and saw some sort of plant growing out of the ground next to her. She couldn’t tell what color it was; everything looked red.  
She could somehow see through the ground and look at the plant’s shape. It was humanoid with a giant head out of which grew a long leafed stem and noticeably protruding eye-shaped things. It also seemed to have wings sticking from its back. All in all, it looked kind of like Rosa’s new body.  
Rosa curiously looked at the thing. Its stem pierced through the ground and was waving softly, like a small breeze was pushing on it.  
‘What is this thing?’ Rosa pondered as she gazed at the stem’s small movements. It seemed strangely inviting, like it was beckoning Rosa to come over and touch it.  
Rosa pushed herself out of the soil and stood on the ground, noticing that her legs and feet were also different, similar to her arms.  
She took a hesitant step forward.  
And fell flat on her face.  
“Upf—!” Rosa pushed herself up. She had no idea what was going on with her body, but her center of mass had definitely changed quite a bit.  
Rosa took another step, careful not to lose her balance.  
She slowly took one more step.  
Then she stepped again, slightly faster.  
Then she stepped again, even faster.  
Then she was walking at a normal pace, reaching the plant’s stem.  
Rosa put her hands on the stem. It immediately seemed to flinch and stiffen up at her touch.  
She looked down at the plant’s underground parts. They were still unmoving, but it almost seemed like they were… tensing up?  
With a ruffled brow, Rosa tugged gently at the stem. It didn’t seem to damage it, so she kept going, pulling and pulling until…!  
The plant flew out of the ground, sending Rosa crashing backwards. “Oof!”  
She sat up, rubbing her head. “Agh…”  
She turned her head to look at the plant.  
Finally, she could get a good, direct look at it. It looked almost exactly like Rosa’s current form, with exaggerated yet stubby humanoid features. Its eye parts were large and shiny, reflecting clearly the light from the glowing mushrooms. Its wings were mostly transparent and hard to see.  
Rosa saw something else about it, too.  
It was animate, and it was staring right at her.  
She felt a little creeped out. “Um…” She stood up.  
She spoke, “Hello—”  
“AAAAAAAAAH!!!” the plant screeched loudly, stumbling away from Rosa.  
Rosa flinched back, startled.  
She hesitated. “…Uh—”  
“GET AWAY FROM ME!!!” it continued screeching. Its wings began to flutter, lifting it off the ground.  
“GYEHH!” the plant cried. It seemed surprised by its own flight.  
Rosa stared at the plant as it convulsed and seemed to have an airborne panic attack.  
“WH—WHAT THE—NGIHHH”  
Its wings halted suddenly, and it crashed to the ground.  
Rosa blinked, perplexed.  
She walked towards the plant, which was now lying down on the ground shivering.  
“Are... Are you oka—”  
“EEK!” the plant yelped as it skittered away from Rosa.  
“Wait a minute! I’m not going to hurt you!” Rosa pleaded.  
The plant stared at Rosa, still shivering.  
Slowly, Rosa reached out her hand towards the plant.  
The plant looked at her hand for a hesitant moment and cautiously grabbed it.  
“Ehmm…” Rosa muttered, thinking of what to say.  
“…Hello, I’m Rosa—”  
“WHAT?!” the plant yelled. Its eyes seemed to get even wider.  
“Wah!” Rosa stepped back.  
“YOU’RE ROSA?!?!” The plant pointed at Rosa’s face.  
Rosa looked at the plant. “…Yes?”  
The plant wavered slightly.  
“I…” it murmured.  
“Yes? What?” Rosa asked.  
“I’m…”  
It did the closest thing that a plant with no lungs could do to taking a deep breath.  
“I’m Adam,” it stated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a transcript of my absolutely genius, Einstein-esque thought process (obvious sarcasm is obvious) as I wrote the part where Rosa became a Pikmin:  
> "OK, so now that I’ve got Rosa trapped in the Candypop Bud, how do I describe her eventually waking up as a Pikmin? I don’t want to do the same thing as in chapter one with a different character… Um, how about… I dunno, I’ll just put in a clinical description of visual snow. That sounds like a good idea!"


	4. Rearin' in Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was writing chapter five, but when I finished it I decided it was too short to be a regular chapter and added it to the end of this chapter. Everything after the line "Who was that Winged Pikmin who flew away a minute ago?" is a new addition. I was originally going to call it "Flying Fleer," but as it ended up an addition to this chapter, I can't call it that. Also, I polished up the preexisting text.

Soft.

It was soft.

Dave could feel softness underneath himself.

He slowly opened his eyes.

He wasn't in his bed. This was a completely different place, with a weird yellowish-salmon coloration. _'Where am I…?'_

_'What happened yesterday…? Oh. Right. I'm a Pikmin. This is the Onion.'_

Dave noticed a yellow figure laying face-up on the floor a couple inches away from him.

_'Huh? A Yellow Pikmin… Johnny? The Onions must have merged. I'm glad Johnny's OK.'_

Dave slowly sat up, looking around the Onion's interior. Sunlight shone through the semi-transparent walls of the Onion and lit it up.

_'I can't even remember what happened after I entered the Onion… I guess I fell asleep really quick. Well, that's kind of disappointing, but whatever…'_

It was shaped like an inverse donut, comprising a single hollow tube running around the inside of the Onion. In the center of the inverse donut there was a hard, vaguely treelike wall.

_'If I had to guess, I'd say that's where enemy corpses are processed into Pikmin…'_

"Mng…"

_'Oh!'_ Dave looked towards Johnny. He was slowly starting to wake up.

His eyes slowly opened.

He blinked a couple times.

Groggily, his eyes scanned around. "Whuh…"

Eventually, he noticed Dave. "…Oh!"

He sat up. "Hey, Dave!"

Dave waved. "Hey."

"Uh…" Johnny looked at the walls of the Onion. "So this is the inside of an Onion…?"

"Seems so," said Dave.

Johnny stood up, looking at Dave with an inquisitive expression.

"Why are—"

"I think I know what you're going to ask. I'm here because the Onions merged together. When multiple colors of Onion meet, they merge into a single Onion that can hold multiple colors," Dave explained. "This Onion can hold Red _and_ Yellow Pikmin now."

Johnny blinked. "Oh, OK…"

Dave noticed a small opening at a corner where the floor and wall met. "Y'know, I wonder where we've landed…"

He walked over to the opening and crouched down in front of it.

He stuck his hand out and felt it a little bit… It was soft.

It seemed like this was where the leg extended out so Pikmin could enter and leave the Onion.

Dave crawled out.

The bright light of the morning sun illuminated a beautiful landscape. The Onion had landed in a small clearing-like area, with verdant blades of grass and blooming flowers growing from every inch of the ground. Far off in the distance, Dave could see a shining river.

Bluish-white clouds decorated the sky above, and right above the horizon hanged the sun.

Dave felt at ease.

"So what do we do now?" Johnny asked from behind Dave, who was startled.

"Oh! Eh, uh, well…" Dave stammered. "I think…"  
He put his hand to his chin, pondering the question. What _do_ they do now?

Dave's eyes drifted off to a flower in the distance. It had white petals and a long green stem, and it had a small red pellet in the middle of the petals with '1' marked on top.

_'A Pellet Posy…'_

"…I know! We should grow some more Pikmin!" Dave exclaimed before running off to the Pellet Posy.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Johnny ran after Dave.

Dave arrived at the Pellet Posy. "This is a Pellet Posy," he said as he pointed at the Pellet Posy.

"A Pellet Posy?" Johnny asked, referring to the Pellet Posy.

Dave nodded to confirm it was a Pellet Posy. "Yes," he vocally confirmed the Pellet Posy's Pellet-Posieness. "A Pellet Posy."

Dave gestured at the Pellet Posy's pellet. "See that pellet?" he asked if Johnny could see the pellet of the Pellet Posy. "When a pellet is brought to the Onion, it can make new…"

Dave paused.

"Crap, we forgot the Sheargrubs!"

Johnny blinked. "The Sheargrubs…?" His eyes widened. "Oh, right!"

"I guess that was a waste," Dave said sadly, his stem drooping to the ground.

"…Oh well." Dave looked up at the Pellet Posy. "Can't help that now."

Dave stepped up to the stem of the Pellet Posy. He grabbed it and slowly started to climb up it.

"Yah!" _Wqueueh!_ Dave whacked his stem into the pellet over and over until eventually it detached and fell to the ground, along with Dave.

Dave skipped over to the pellet, grabbed it, and started carrying it.

Johnny followed him as he took the pellet to the Onion.

Dave placed the pellet under the Onion.

Immediately, the pellet started hovering slightly, and then it went up straight into the Onion. It was like a vacuum cleaner sucking up a piece of dust.

The Onion bulged slightly as the pellet entered it, then contracted and shot out a pair of seeds into the air. The seeds elegantly descended to the ground, into which they sank.

Both seeds sprouted a leafed stem.

"Woah," said Johnny.

"It's a lot prettier than it looks in the games…" Dave muttered. He wasn't sure if he was saying that because it actually was, or if it was his Pikmin instincts, but he didn't quite care either way.

Dave walked up to one of the stems.

He looked at it for a moment. He realized how curious he was about how intelligent Pikmin would be. He had often idly wondered about it before, but never had it taken his whole attention.

_'If a Pikmin is as intelligent as a person…_

_…that would be both horrifying and totally amazing!'_

Dave slowly grasped the stem in his hands.

"Moment of truth…!"

He yanked the Pikmin out of the ground, sending it flying into the air. It landed on its feet behind Dave.

Dave turned around.

The newly plucked Red Pikmin looked at Dave with blank innocence on its face.

Slowly, Dave raised his hand towards the Pikmin.

The Pikmin looked at Dave's hand and copied the gesture.

Dave shook the Pikmin's hand. "…Hello," he greeted.

The Pikmin looked at its hand curiously.

It looked back up at Dave.

"Hyelo," it squeaked.

"OHMIGOD IT _TALKED!_ " Johnny yelled.

Johnny ran up to the startled Red Pikmin. Dave backed off nervously, just as startled as the Red Pikmin.

"Hello! I'm Johnny!" Johnny pointed to himself. "Joh-nny!"

"Chah…Jonnee," the Pikmin repeated. It looked confused and a little bit scared.

Johnny pointed to Dave. "That's Dave. Dayyyyyyyve."

The Pikmin nervously looked at Dave. It gestured at him. "Dayb…?"

"Yeah! Dave!" Johnny affirmed.

Johnny pointed at the Pikmin. "And… uh…"

"…Rrrrro…ho…" he said unsurely. "Rojo."

The Pikmin pointed at itself. "Rauho."

Dave looked weirdly at Johnny. What kind of a name was 'Rojo'? _'A stupid one…'_

Johnny 'smiled' and nodded. "Yes!"

Johnny pointed at himself, looking at the newly named Rojo eagerly.

"…Johnny," it said again.

Rojo looked at Dave. "…Dave."

Rojo gestured at itself. "Rojo."

"Yes! This is amazing!" Johnny yelled as he bearhugged Rojo.

"Wah!" Rojo uttered.

Johnny hugged Rojo tightly for at least ten seconds before letting go.

Rojo stumbled backwards slightly.

"That was a _hug_ ," said Johnny. "Hug."

"Hog?" Rojo repeated.

"Hug!" Johnny hugged Rojo again.

"Ah! Hug!"

Johnny laughed. "Huuu~g! Johnny hugs Rojo!"

"Johnny hugs Rojo?" Rojo parroted.

"Yes! Johnny! Hugs! Rojo!" Johnny shouted.

Johnny eventually stopped and stepped back from Rojo, who looked both frightened and enlightened.

"Johnny hugs Rojo…" Rojo muttered.

It looked at Dave, who was spectating with interest. "Rojo hugs Dave!"

Rojo tackled Dave to the ground.

"Pft—!" Johnny pffted. He covered his face with his hands, trying his best not to laugh.

His best was not very much.

"Khhkhkhkkk…hhh…!" Johnny let out small guttural breaths of laughter.

Dave pushed Rojo off.

"No!" He pointed a guilt-bearing finger at it. "Rojo _doesn't_ hug Dave."

Rojo cocked its head to its side. "Rojo duzint…?"

"Rojo doesn't hug Dave!" Dave repeated.

"Rojo doeznt hug Dave."

_'Quick learner…'_ Dave nodded, stepping away from Rojo while glaring at Johnny.

Johnny smiled in satisfaction.

Dave grumbled.

* * *

Rosa was not exactly feeling OK today.

Maybe it was because she had woken up in a cave.

Maybe it was because she had been transformed into some sort of weird plant creature.

Maybe it was because her boyfriend had also been transformed into some sort of weird winged plant creature and made her realize that he is a giant wimp.

In fact, it was a mixture of all of the above.

"You're… Adam?! Really?!" Rosa asked incredulously.

"Y—Yeah. Really…" Adam answered.

Rosa stifled a laugh. "Wow… Pfff…"

Adam glared at Rosa. It seemed like he was trying to look serious, but his big, shiny eyes and childlike proportions just made him look like an annoyed plush toy.

"You laughing at me?" he asked.

At that moment, Rosa realized something incredible…

Adam's voice was _really_ high-pitched and feminine.

"Bahahahaha!" Rosa collapsed on the ground, laughing hard.

Adam looked at Rosa angrily.

He crossed his arms. "Guess that's a yes," he snarked.

After a minute of laughing, Rosa finally sat up with happy tears welling up in her eyes.

"I'm sorry~!" she said insincerely. "I just… Pfffahahahaha!"

She collapsed in laughter again.

Adam couldn't roll his eyes, but he really wished he could. "Ugh."

"Hehehehe…" Rosa giggled, calming down. "Ohhhh, man."

Adam sighed. "Are ya done?"

Rosa nodded.

"OK, so… What the hell's going on?" Adam asked.

Rosa shrugged. "Why're you asking me?"

"Just wonderin' out loud," said Adam.

"…'Ight."

Rosa and Adam looked around.

"We're definitely in a cave," said Adam.

"No shit," said Rosa.

Adam folded his arms. "Do you got any better idea of where we are?"

"No. Do you?"

Adam paused. "…Ah."

Rosa humphed. "Let's try to get outta here."

Adam silently nodded. Normally, he would be more confrontational, but something about being transformed into a winged plant creature with big cute shiny eyes really lowered his confidence.

Rosa started walking around the spacious cavern, gazing around at its tall walls.

Adam took a step forward to follow her.

And he fell flat on his face.

"Ow!" he grunted. He tried to push himself up, but he just ended up flipping himself over instead.

"Huh?" Rosa turned around and instantly cracked up when she saw Adam flailing around on the ground like a turtle.

"KAHAHAHAHA!" she cackled.

"Dammit! Rosa, c'mon! Help me up!" Adam pleaded.

Rosa responded with more cackling.

Adam sighed sadly. "Please!"

Rosa's laughter slowly quieted. "Hah… Okay."

She stood up and stepped over to Adam's prone form.

Adam looked at her.

She leaned down and picked Adam up by his stem.

"Ow! Ow ow owww!" Adam cried. "That really hurts!" As soon as he got up, he snatched his stem away and rubbed it gently.

"Let's go. We need to get out of here," said Rosa.

She turned around and started walking through the giant caverns. It was big, winding, and dark. Every single corridor looked like every other corridor except for the varying glowing mushrooms. Eventually, after going for what felt like hours, she managed to stumble upon a large, hall-like part of the cave with a large shape a few yards away. It was large and looked like a mushroom.

Rosa squinted at the giant mushroom, and then her eyes widened. That wasn't just a mushroom. It had eye stalks and two tiny feet and nostrils and _wait is that a mouth and fangs?!_

She stared. This was some sort of giant beast, one that just so happened to look eerily similar to a giant mushroom.

"Woah," Adam uttered.

"EH!" Rosa yelped. "You surprised me!"

Adam did a little amused "pffft" and flew in front of Rosa towards the mushroom beast.

Rosa's eyes widened. " _Wait!_ " she whispered.

Adam turned. "What is it?" he asked loudly.

" _Shhh!_ "

Adam gave Rosa a weird look. " _What is it?_ " he whispered.

"That isn't a mushroom!" Rosa whispered back.

Adam ruffled his brow and glanced back at the beast. "Really? Then what is it?"

"It looks like some kind of… beast, for lack of a better term."

"A… beast? Like me?!"

Rosa rolled her eyes. "No, this is actually dangerous."

"Yowch, that burns! I need to get myself to a burn center! But for real, what do you mean it's a beast?"

"Can't you see it?" Rosa pointed to the mushroom beast. "It has a mouth, and eyes, and feet! Just look at it!"

Adam looked at the beast and saw nothing of what Rosa was talking about. "Did you find some acid while you were walking around the cave or something? I have no idea what you're on."

"I'm not on drugs! Just look! I know its eyes are a bit small, but you can see the _mouth_ , right?! It's right… Uh… It's in…"

Rosa looked harder at the mushroom and realized something. She wasn't just seeing the beast from one angle. Somehow, she was looking straight through the beast's skin, and seeing its features on the other side. Now that she realized that, she also noticed she could see its internal organs, like its beating heart and squeezing intestines.

"…Look at it from a different angle!" Rosa said, walking around to the beast's right.

Adam followed and stared at the beast. "…Oh!" he said, seeing what Rosa was seeing. "You're right! Good eye!"

"We should get away from it," said Rosa, stepping backward.

"Huh? But this looks so cool! It's like a sleeping giant!" Adam flew up next to one of the beast's eye stalks.

Rosa started. "STOP GOING TOWARD IT!" she shouted, eyes fixed on the beast's giant stomach.

_'Wait, I just yelled_ _…'_

The beast's eyes slowly opened.

_'Oh…'_

"…SHIT!" Rosa and Adam yelled.

The beast stood up on its two pale legs and fixed its eyes on Adam and Rosa.

"RUN!" Rosa started dashing away from the mushroom beast

The beast gave chase, jogging after Rosa like a fat slug-mushroom man with legs. Rosa ran for her life. Each step jolted against the ground and echoed through the empty cavern.

Off in the distance, Rosa noticed a weird shape. Something seemed to be coming out of it.

_'What is that? I have no clue what it is, but…'_

Rosa quickly glanced behind her. The beast was still giving chase.

_'…it's not like it would make this situation any worse to go to it!'_

Rosa sprinted with tired legs in the direction of the shape, and it slowly became clearer as she closed in. It was some sort of pipe, and a dense cloud of gas that looked like dry ice was coming out of it.

Rosa ran around a stalagmite and into the cloud. It didn't seem to be anything harmful, and it even reinvigorated Rosa a bit, allowing her legs to carry her a few feet further.

Rosa left the cloud and stopped moving. She panted heavily, resting on the ground.

The beast was still chasing her. It ran straight towards her like a velociraptor, but without the scales or intimidating screeches.

As soon as the beast entered the cloud, it stopped.

_GHACKK!_ It hacked and coughed loudly for a few seconds. _HCOCK! UCGHK!_

_HGHHHhh… RRrrrnnnnn…_

It collapsed on top of the pipe, smashing it to bits.

Rosa stared. "Holy shit…"

Adam flew above the cloud and looked down at Rosa. "You're OK!"

Rosa stood up. She sighed. "Thankfully… We still need to get out of here, though."

"Right," said Adam. "Let's go, then!"

Looking around, Rosa tried to spot any sort of exit. She silently started walking to a spot that was slightly brighter than its surroundings.

"I think this way is right." Rosa kept walking, staring at the spot.

She walked for a few minutes, with Adam fluttering closeby, and reached it. The exit stretched out for what looked like a mile, towering over the two as they kept going toward it.

"Yes! Finally!" Adam cried.

Rosa's walk sped up into a sprint. She ran the last few yards before the exit with her eyes locked on the sunlight spilling through the giant hole.

She crossed outside, and giant world painted in crimson stretched in front of her. The blood orange sky shone behind the brick trees and six-foot-tall ruby grass. A cool breeze blew like a lover's rosy kiss, sending a chill through Rosa's back.

Rosa took a deep breath. Everything stood tall around her. She felt so…

…tiny.

"…Wow."

She stepped out onto the soil. Adam fluttered above her.

"Beautiful…" he muttered.

Rosa's legs moved on their own, taking her entranced self forward. Adam followed, similarly amazed by this strange, giant world.

Rosa and Adam walked and looked for a minute, taking in the sights and sounds.

Some giant butterflies fluttered over their heads as giant bugs crawled underground. A bird sang from a distant treetop. The clouds slowly drifted through the sky.

"What's that?" Adam asked, looking at something in the distance.

Rosa's head raised. "Huh?"

Rosa could see something tall standing over the grass.

It looked like a weird peach with three tentacles coming out of it. Some sort of multicolored (or multishade, she couldn't tell) liquid seemed to be slowly flowing inside it, with each part being visibly distinct, like a multicolored toothpaste flowing out of the tube without mixing.

A circular wall of grass surrounded the ground around the peach thing.

Adam flew a foot up, looking at what was behind the grass.

His eyes widened. "Holy shit."

"Huh?" Rosa said. She looked at the wall of grass.

She stepped forward to it and parted it, and she immediately understood Adam's reaction.

There were other plant creatures here. Five, to be specific.

Three of them were deep red with pointy noses, and the other two were lighter red with large ears.

All of them stared at Rosa and Adam with surprised, yet intrigued looks.

One of the red creatures slowly stepped towards Rosa.

"Uh," it began to speak. "Hi, I—"

" _OHMIGODWHATTHEFUCK!?_ " Adam squealed, jetting away in terror.

Everyone else stared at Adam as he became a speck in the distance.

The red creature blinked.

"…Well," it continued.

Rosa jolted a little bit. She looked at it. "…Hi?" she said.

The creature raised its lower eyelids in what seemed like an eager smile. It raised its hand to its chest. "Hi! I'm Dave!"

One of the lighter red creatures skipped over next to Dave. "I'm Johnny!"

Dave gestured at Rosa. "Who are you?"

Rosa blinked.

"Ehm… I'm Rosa," she said nervously.

"Wait, your name is _Rosa_?!" Johnny asked.

Rosa looked at Johnny for a moment, then nodded. "Yes…?"

"Are you…"

Rosa felt like she knew what Johnny was going to say. Johnny and Dave… She had a sneaking suspicion this wasn't just a coinci—

"…a friend of my brother Joel?!"

Yup.

Yup-a-dee-doo.

Yuparoosky.

Yyyyyyup!

It wasn't just a coincidence they were called Johnny and Dave!

"Uh huh," Rosa confirmed.

Johnny was speechless for a moment.

The breeze gently shook the grass.

"Holy guacamole!" shouted Johnny. "Of all the people to find turned into a Pikmin, one of my brother's best friends?!"

_'One of his best friends?!'_ Rosa thought. She would never in a million years say that she and Joel were best friends. Intimate acquaintances for sure, maybe close pals if you wanted to stretch it, but never best friends! _'…He must not have many friends, then. That's kinda sad. I should hang out with him more often.'_

"You know her, Johnny?!" Dave asked.

"Yeah, I _literally_ just said she's one of my brother's best friends!" Johnny said, hands on his 'hips'.

Dave hummed. "Well then…"

He turned to Rosa. "Who was that Winged Pikmin who flew away a minute ago?"

"…The Winged Pikmin? I think that's Adam," said Rosa. "My boyfriend."

"Your _boyfriend?_ " Johnny asked incredulously.

Rosa cringed. "Yes. My boyfriend."

Dave raised his brow inquisitively. "How old are you two?"

"I think she's sixteen," said Johnny.

Rosa nodded silently. If she had teeth, she would have been gritting them hard.

"If you're sixteen," said Johnny, "that would mean your boyfriend is sixteen too, right?"

_'He's actually seventeen and got held back in the first grade, but I am_ not _saying that out loud.'_

"You're telling me that a _sixteen-year-old_ just screamed and flew away because he saw a _Pikmin—_ "

"Hello!" a deep red creature interrupted.

Rosa started. "GAH!"

"Oh hey, Rojo," said Johnny.

"…Rojo?" Rosa asked, staring at the creature.

"Oh, he—um, they're… It's a Pikmin that we plucked," said Dave.

Rosa blinked. "What?"

"Right, you don't know what a Pikmin is. Well…" Dave began, "let's start with Red Pikmin. Red Pik—"

"Wait, wait. _Red_ Pikmin?" Rosa interrupted.

"What about Red Pikmin?" Dave asked.

"Aren't you all red?"

Johnny furrowed his brow. "No? Clearly we're not. Can't you see?" Johnny waved his hand over Dave's torso. "I'm Yellow, he's Red."

Rosa's ruby eyes widened. "Really? Everything looks red to me."

Dave's ivory eyes also widened. He gasped, "You see everything as just red?!"

"…Yes?"

Dave looked like he just won the lottery, became king of the world, and discovered the key to immortality all at once. "Oh my god."

"THIS! IS! AMAZING! I've been wondering so long about how White Pikmin see and now I can finally know!" Dave ran over to Rosa and bearhugged her.

"Tell me! Tell me everything about the way you see!"

Rosa looked flustered. "Ah! Hm, well…"

"I simply see everything as shades of red, kinda like I have red filters over my eyes."

"OK…" Dave hummed. "But can you see stuff past obstacles? Like underground stuff?"

"Ehm… Yes, I can," Rosa responded.

Dave gasped.

His eyes were filled with wonder and awe.

Her eyes were filled with nervousness.

"H—How far can you see?" Dave asked.

Rosa looked around. "I dunno… I guess as far as I usually see?"

"Hm." Dave nodded. "Alright."

"Hey, shouldn't we get to, you know, finding Adam?" Johnny asked.

"Oh! That's right!" said Dave. He turned to the direction Adam flew off to. "He went this way, right?"

"I think so," said Rosa.

"Well, let's go! C'mon!" Dave grabbed Johnny's hand and sprinted into the distance.

"Wait for me!" said Rosa, running after them.

* * *

_'I might have fucked up,'_ Adam thought. He was thinking that and not doing anything about it, since there wasn't anything else he could do while trapped in a web.

He had accidentally flown into the web of some weird black and yellow spider in a crevice in a tree, and somehow managed to fly into and kill the spider. However, he hadn't managed to break the web. So here he was, tied up in a small crevice, covered in spider guts, and regretting his life choices.

_'I hope Rosa's looking for me… But I also kinda hope she isn't. This is so embarrassing. I just wanna curl into a ball and die right now.'_

"Adam!" Rosa's voice echoed from the distance. "Adaaaam!"

"Where are you, Adam?" another voice added. Probably one of the creatures that spooked him earlier.

"Hey! Adam! Uh… We have AXE deodorant! And monster trucks!" said a third voice.

"Yeah! We—Wait, what? Dave, what're you talking about?!" asked the second voice.

"That'll lure him, won't it?! Don't high-schoolers insecure in their masculinity obsess about that stuff?"

"You know what 'insecure in one's masculinity' means? Aren't you eight or something?"

"I'm eleven, and very well read! My vocabulary is quite negligible, if I do say so myself!"

"… Don't you know that 'negligible' means—"

"Hey, what does 'insecure in one's masculinity' mean? I don't know it!"

"It means, 'not confident in his manliness,' basically."

"OK, thanks!"

"No problem, Johnny!"

"Boys, focus! We need to find Adam!"

"OK! Adaaam!"

"Aaaaadam!"

"A…"

Rosa stepped in front of the tree that Adam was stuck in and paused.

"…dam?"

Adam silently drooped his head. A cold chunk of spider guts ran down his scalp, making him shiver in disgust.

"Ooh, did you find—"

A big-eared, yellow creature skipped next to Rosa and also paused. It was the second voice Adam heard… Didn't the third voice say his name was Johnny?

It stared into Adam's eyes. Adam wished he could close his eyes, or at least move them.

"Guys? What's—"

A long-nosed, red creature joined the group, presumably Dave.

All three of them stared piercingly at Adam. Every inch of his being ran cold. He swore for a moment that his soul was cracking apart.

"Pff!" Johnny cracked, putting a hand over his mouthless face. "Pffffhffffhhh…"

"…How'd ya get up _there_ , Adam?" Rosa asked.

Adam didn't respond.

Dave also started cracking up. "Hee…"

Both of their faces flushed deep in their respective colors as they tried not to break down laughing. Rosa glanced at them.

"Stop laughing," she commanded. "We need to get him out of…"

She went silent, staring at Adam. "Khhh…"

"BAHAHAHAHA!" All three of them collapsed on the ground, laughing loudly. They clutched their torsos as they laughed and laughed and laughed. If they had bladders, they would have been pissing themselves with how hard they were laughing.

Each laugh pierced through Adam's heart, crushing his soul. He never thought it was possible to feel so embarrassed before.

He turned his head, trying to avert his eyes, but accidentally slapped his leaf against a piece of spider guts. He cringed and tried to pull away, but his leaf was stuck in the sticky entrails.

"Ooh, ooh…" Rosa calmed down. "Ah, gosh, that's funny…" She wiped a tear from her eye. "…but we still need to get him outta there. Right, guys?"

"R—Right," said Johnny, still chuckling slightly.

Dave sat up, taking a deep 'breath'. "OK…"

Dave looked at Adam. "It seems he's been trapped in an Arachnode web and somehow killed it."

"Arachnode?" Rosa asked.

"Yeah, an Arachnode. They're pretty much like spiders. They set up webs and wait for something, like a Winged Pikmin, to come get trapped in their web. I never knew they set up webs in cramped spaces like this, though. All of the ones in _Pikmin 3_ make their webs in open spaces."

Dave climbed into the crevice. "Normally, an Arachnode's web disappears when you kill it, but that hasn't happened here for some reason. Maybe it's because he killed it without removing its body from the web?"

He poked a lone strand of silk. It stuck to his hand, but broke as he pulled his hand back. "So this web isn't really that strong…" he muttered, looking up and down the web.

Then, he perked up.

"I have an idea!" He jumped out of the crevice and ran up to Johnny.

"What is it?" Johnny asked.

Dave gestured to Johnny's stem. "Remember when I tried to throw you up that tree yesterday?"

Johnny nodded with a grimace on his face.

"Well, I think I can throw you and break the web," said Dave. "Don't worry, it's only, like, a foot I'm throwing you."

"You want to throw me into the web," Johnny said flatly.

"Well, not the _web_ , just maybe throw you at Adam and break the web, kinda like a wrecking ball."

Johnny blinked.

"Whatever," he said.

"Great!" Dave grabbed Johnny's stem. "Get ready. One…"

Rosa stepped back a bit.

"Two…"

Adam tensed up.

"Three!"

Dave launched Johnny at Adam, hitting him square in the face.

"AGH—! FUCK!" Adam yelled.

The web broke, sending him and Johnny crashing to the bottom of the crevice. They tumbled out onto the ground.

"Ugh…" both of them groaned.

Adam sat up, wiping silk and guts off his body.

Rosa stomped towards him. "Mind telling me why the fuck you ran away like that?!" she asked furiously, jabbing a finger at him.

Adam flinched. "I…" he stammered.

Johnny and Dave slowly stepped back.

"YOU WHAT? YOU WHAT, HUH?!" Rosa shouted.

"I just—I got scared!"

Rosa stared at Adam. "Scared…? SCARED?!"

"Eep!" Adam yelped.

"YOU GOT FUCKING SCARED AND _THAT'S_ WHY YOU RAN OFF?! YOU COULD HAVE GOTTEN YOURSELF KILLED, YOU DUMBASS!"

She continued berating Adam loudly, using colorful language that was definitely inappropriate for children, like the twelve-year-old Johnny or eleven-year-old Dave.

Johnny covered his ears, cringing in pain at the loudness. Dave did the same, but only because he really didn't wanna hear that stuff.

Rosa yelled on about how much of a coward Adam was and how stupid he was for flying away, and then transitioned to a bunch of different ways he could have accidentally killed himself.

Adam eventually stopped hearing Rosa's yelling and managed to dissociate enough to hear himself think.

_'What the hell is up with Rosa? It's like her entire personality flipped around all of a sudden. And what the hell is up with me?! Why the hell am I such a bitch now?! I oughta… No, I'm in front of two little kids. But I'm definitely gonna do that when they're not around.'_

Eventually, after a few minutes, Rosa calmed down.

"…That was… fucking stupid of you…" Rosa panted.

She collapsed on the ground.

Everyone startled, looking at the collapsed Rosa.

"Rosa?!" Adam shouted.

He nervously tapped her shoulder.

Ever so slightly, she tensed up.

"I think she passed out," said Dave.

"Yeah, ya _think?_ " said Johnny.

"She probably exhausted herself from getting so angry," Dave continued, ignoring Johnny's quip.

Ruffling his brow, Johnny cautiously stepped towards Rosa.

Rosa's stem stiffened, and she slowly stood back up. Everyone flinched back.

She rubbed her head. "…What happened? I think I just blacked out…"

"You were yelling at Adam and then you passed out," said Johnny.

"Huh? That's weird…" Rosa mumbled.

She turned to Adam. "I'm sorry about that outburst, but you're still a fucking dumbass."

Adam shrank. "I—I know," he said meekly.

_'SEE?! This is exactly what I was just fucking thinking! Why am I suddenly a giant bitch?!'_

"Rosa, don't be so mean to him!" said Dave.

"At least don't start yelling again!" Johnny added.

Rosa glared at Dave and Johnny for a moment, and then she perked up with a look of delayed horror, like someone who just boarded a 24-hour flight and realized they didn't leave any food out for their dog at home.

She stared at them for a few seconds.

The choice words she used in her rant echoed from the distance.

Her stem drooped. She put her hands together sheepishly. "…Right. Sorry," she said, glancing away from Johnny's ears.

Everyone was silent for a moment.

Dave looked up at the sky. "It's about midday," he said. "We need to find some Onions for you guys."

Rosa and Adam gave Dave a weird look. Johnny giggled.

"Some… _onions?!_ " Rosa asked.

"Yeah, Onions. You need an Onion to stay in overnight," Dave stated.

Rosa raised her hands in confusion. "…Why?"

"Because, there are lots of nocturnal predators around that will eat you if you don't get in an Onion by sundown."

"But why an onion? I don't understand."

Dave blinked. "…Oh! You think I'm talking about _onions_! I'm talking about 'Onions,' with a capital O! That's that multicolored thing with ramen noodle legs we were at a while back."

"Oh," said Rosa, finally understanding.

"Yeah," said Johnny, "the Onions take off every night, and if a Pikmin isn't in an Onion by then, it'll definitely get eaten, and also, Pikmin can only go into an Onion the same color of itself, so we'll need to find a White Onion and a Winged Onion." He turned to Adam. "A Pikmin is what we've been turned into, by the way."

Adam didn't have a mouth, but it would have been gaped if he did. "Shit…"

Johnny nodded. "I know! If we don't find those Onions by sundown, you two are screwed!"

"…Did you say they _take off?!_ Like, 'fly up into space' take off?!" Adam shouted, his face filled with awe.

Dave, Johnny, and Rosa stared at Adam dumbfoundedly.

"Yes," Dave stated with a nod.

"That's so cool! We're gonna fly up into space?!"

Dave put a hand to his face. "It sounds a lot cooler when you put it like that…"

"Honestly, I just passed out as soon as I went in the Onion. I don't remember a thing between going in and waking up on the floor," said Johnny.

"Me too!" said Dave. "That's actually pretty weird… Anyway, we're getting off track. We need to find a White Onion and a Winged Onion!"

"Alright. How do we do it?" asked Rosa.

Dave shrugged.

"I dunno," he said, his stem drooping slightly. "Johnny and I just kinda stumbled across our Onions accidentally. I found the Red Onion through scent, though, so maybe I could do that for the others?"

Johnny perked up. "That's a good idea! Just like using my hearing to find our way out of the cave."

"Thanks!" Dave 'smiled.'

"It's worth a shot," said Rosa. "After all, I barely have a clue of what's going on, so I'll just go along with what you guys do."

Adam perked up like he wanted to say something, but stopped. He nervously looked at Rosa. It seemed like she calmed down, but…

_'I'm just gonna hope she doesn't blow up again.'_

Johnny nodded. "Then it's settled. We're heading out to find some Onions!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how to write realistic boyfriend-girlfriend relationships (or regular friendships, for that matter), so I'm just going off of stereotypes and what other people write. Please tell me how bad I got it.


	5. What Would Have Been of Colorful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No, this isn't a day-late April Fool's joke.

Well, this story is NEVER gonna be finished (at least, not by me), so here’s what I was planning to do with it.

First things first, let’s discuss the backstory. I was going to reveal this very late in the story, just before (or maybe even after) the climax.

The Candypop Buds were created by the Plasm Wraith, who was created by some scientist who lives in Johnny’s hometown. The Plasm Wraith hates this scientist, so it decided to study human behavior so it could take control of a human’s body and kill the scientist. For some reason, it thought the best way to study human behavior was to kidnap seven humans and put them in Pikmin bodies.

Now that we have the backstory done with, here’s what would have happened in the rest of the story:

-The Winged Onion is found easily

-The White Onion can’t be found before sundown, so Rosa has to stay on the surface. Dave stays with her to help keep her from getting killed

-The White Onion is eventually found

-Three more characters are introduced: Lee Urbina, a Latino weeaboo, Ashe Urbina, Lee’s transgender twin, and Douglas Irving, a detective.

-A cave is discovered (from here on out called “Intruders’ Tomb”)

-Johnny and co. head down Intruders’ Tomb, they all come close to death

-They leave the Intruders’ Tomb to recover

-They come back later and they’re prepared this time

-They head to the bottom of the Intruders’ Tomb

-Epic fight with the Plasm Wraith

-Plasm Wraith gets beaten

-Because the Wraith is defeated, Johnny and co. become human again

-And then Johnny becomes the protagonist of a JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fancomic

Yeah, I was planning to take the main character of this Pikmin fanfic and make him the main character of a JoJo fanfic. He was going to have a really overpowered Stand.

If you think that’s weird, you don’t even wanna KNOW what sort of crazy backstory I threw together for Pikmin Colors… (There’s a reason why the name of Johnny’s mom was Alex. It’s a Minecraft reference. Yes, she was supposed to be Alex from Minecraft. No, I don’t understand why I thought this was remotely reasonable as a backstory for a Pikmin fanfic.)

Oh, also, I never mentioned it in the story, but Rosa is black. (I was originally going to mention it in chapter 4, but I decided not to.)


End file.
